Julien Van Mellaerts & James Baillieu

Two supremely talented musicians rising rapidly in the world of Art Song. New Zealand baritone Julien Van Mellaerts and South-African pianist James Baillieu both won top prizes at the Wigmore Song Competition, with Otago University graduate Van Mellaerts winning the Kohn Foundation International Song Competition and first prize in the 2017 Kathleen Ferrier Award. This concert is your chance to hear two big names of the future.

Audiences will be treated to a beguiling selection of songs of travel, landscapes and drama – including a new commission from NZ composer Gareth Farr who will set to music short poems about our own iconic birds the takahē, dotterel, tūī, and the extinct huia.

Schumann’s profound setting of ‘A Poets Life’, whimsical arrangements of British folksongs by Benjamin Britten including ‘O Waly Waly’, Vaughan Williams conjures up the British landscape in his gently lilting pastoral songs. Over the course of several different programmes Julien and James explore a selection of art song ranging from the swooning nostalgia of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square to Cole Porter’s laughout-loud The Tale of the Oyster.

“New Zealander Julien Van Mellaerts… captured the strangeness and indeterminacy of this operatic setpiece [Billy Budd], in which time seems to stand still..” – OperaToday.com

“James Baillieu, who has decisively and rapidly established himself as a remarkably astute accompanist, was on magnificent form” – Classical Source

Pre-Concert Talk
A pre-concert talk will take place 45 minutes prior to each performance in Napier, Hamilton and New Plymouth. These are a great way to discover more about what you’ll experience that night and we’ll let you know by email on details including location and speakers two days prior to the concert.

Presenters
This concert is presented in association with Motueka Music Group, The Festival of Colour, Christopher’s Classics, Warkworth Music, Tauranga Musica Incorporated, Chamber Music Wanganui, Waikanae Music Society & features as part of the Chamber Music New Zealand International Concert Season (Hamilton, New Plymouth & Napier).

Discover more about Lieder in this wonderful article by Tim Ashly at The Guardian: “Schubert’s dynamics go from scream to whisper, not from loud to soft!” The words are spoken by Isabelle Huppert in Michael Haneke’s film The Piano Teacher. She is barking at a pupil who is attempting to play the accompaniment to Im Dorfe (In the Village) from Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise. The pupil delicately repeats the passage. Huppert ousts him from the piano stool and plays it herself, the chords suddenly hanging in the air like icicles. “Don’t you know what it’s like to be cold?” she asks.

MOTUEKA*

CROMWELL*

WANAKA*

CHRISTCHURCH*

WARKWORTH*

TAURANGA*

8

April

NO LONGER ON SALE

HAMILTON

10

April

NO LONGER ON SALE

NEW PLYMOUTH

12

April

NO LONGER ON SALE

WHANGANUI*

13

April

NO LONGER ON SALE

WAIKANAE*

14

April

NO LONGER ON SALE

NAPIER

16

April

NO LONGER ON SALE

* This concert is presented by a local organisation in association with Chamber Music New Zealand. CMNZ subscription tickets, vouchers or passes are not redeemable. Click here to view all presenters for this tour.

We’re pushing the concepts of chamber music to new heights with energising and exciting collaborations sitting side by side with the masterworks of the baroque, classical and romantic. Share with us in this diverse and spirited season of exquisite music.